When American artist Isamu Noguchi visited the Japanese city of Gifu in 1951, the mayor had a request: Could he update the locally made washi paper–and–bamboo lanterns, which were quickly becoming obsolete? Noguchi’s solution: Add a lightbulb.

Soon the artist and Gifu’s Ozeki & Co. began producing what senior curator Dakin Hart of New York’s Noguchi Museum calls “arguably the most ubiquitous sculpture on the planet”: Akari, inexpensive lanterns for table, floor, and ceiling. The lamps, which can be folded flat and shipped for virtually nothing, were an instant success. Still produced by the original manufacturer—and sometimes the original craftsperson—they remain in demand and affordable. A table model costs little more than $100. “They are gentle and modest but really a stroke of genius,” says Raf Simons, Calvin Klein’s chief creative officer, who recently showed his new collection of textiles for Kvadrat amid a glowing Akari forest.

While Isamu Noguchi held many design patents, his famous round lantern (the largest available to order is 48˝ by 46˝) was too simple to qualify for one. “They have flooded the world, even if more through imitation than desire for the true original,” he wrote of the widely copied design. “This has only forced me to devise what might be beyond imitation.” Last year a Noguchi Museum intern was tasked with counting the many iterations: The total hovers over 200.

Since Akari entered the market, they have lit spaces ranging from Georgia O’Keeffe’s New Mexico house to college-dorm rooms to interiors by top designers such as Tom Scheerer and Rodman Primack. Architect William Georgis, who recently decorated an Akari with ink drippings for a residential project, attributes their potent charm to their innate poetry: “They’re paper—they’re ephemeral; they don’t last forever.”

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